The value and risk of a given speaker will vary exponentially from event to event. In many cases, that risk is going to increase as their fee increases. I tend to favor a speaker who can address concrete outcomes beyond merely working harder or with more loyalty. Answering the following may help you assess your risk and value:

1) How well can they tailor their message to your theme and audience challenges?
2) Is it all about the speaker or can their message realistically be applied to your audience?
3) Will they talk to you and your senior decision makers prior to selection?
4) Is their motivational message based on their own experience or compiled by study of others (doers have more believability)?
5) Is your audience composed of high achievers or new hires who may inherently be more prone to apply a motivational message?
6) Can a change of attitude reasonably lead to quantifiable sales increases, cost savings, etc?
7) How related is the speaker’s identity to your audience (age/lifestyle/career/gender/etc)
8) Why are you favoring a purely motivational speaker instead of an expert in your industry/topic/profession (who may still have a motivational impact)?
9) What kind of testimonials have related audiences offered (see below)?

To quantify value, I’ll give you a hypothetical situation. I read thousands of audience evaluations/testimonials. Some are negative, some indifferent, some very positive. I pay special attention to positive evaluations submitted a decent interval after the event (or when a speaker has been invited back). That way, I can see documented results attributable to the speaker. Let’s say 300 sales agents attend. Ten percent of them attribute an average 5% increase in sales to the speaker’s guidance (these are the most positive responders). The average annual sales of this top 10% before the speaker are $500,000. 30 agents x $25,000 incremental sales/agent = $750,000 incremental annual sales. Depending on profit margins, agent turnover and other factors, a $25,000 speaker has paid for themselves, maybe several times. Checking before and after sales figures should be possible. It’s not so quantifiable when the attendees do not have direct expense, profit or sales responsibilities.

Quantify the speaker’s track record, setup measurements for your audience before and after and you will be better able to make a defendable speaker decision.

Written by Mike Taubleb, originally published in MECO.